


Whoever We Are

by shadow_in_the_shade



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, F/M, Gun Kink, Masturbation, Object Insertion, PWP, Rape Threats, Sensation Play, Such angst, but she's totally in favor of them, dub con if you squint, fabric kink, i guess, it's just a pile of hate sex, so many tags for Athos being a total wreck idek how to summarise, the graphic violence tag is mstly just to be on the safe side, the violence is more imagined than perpetrated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-06-05 03:21:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6687097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_in_the_shade/pseuds/shadow_in_the_shade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Athos returns to the scene of the crime because he just can't hate himself enough. Obviously he's not the only one the go back there. Honestly don't search too hard for a plot this is really just an excuse for hate sex. One shot at the moment, might turn into multiple pwp shots if anyone likes it! See tags for warnings. Set some time after season 1 episode 3, probably kinda AU cause I don't think this would really happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Whoever We Are**

This place. He glares around at the mess they left behind. He loved it once. Funny – not funny – how those words _loved_ and _once_ keep cropping up together; perhaps the saddest combination of syllables imaginable. There are black soot shadows, ghosts streaking the crumbling walls; _our souls smeared into the brick._ And is this all, then? Blackened ruins and a long dead flower on a chain, no less bittersweet for having been pressed to that death so long ago. Is this all? Broken glass on the floorboards; at noon, a slashed rainbow of spilt wine gleams in the nervous sunlight. Light has no right to try and permeate the stench of trying to forget. Sweet dreams are worst. Better to pass out.

It is not, he thinks bitterly, merely a case of this being similar to a murderer who repeatedly returns to the scene of the crime – that is _exactly_ what it is. He wonders what he is doing here, wonders what it is that he wants, or what he could hope to find. Not her ghost, for sure; that haunts him everywhere, no less since finding out she was still alive. If that really is what he found out the last time he was here.

Sometimes he wonders if he has not actually gone mad – or at least certainly blurred the line between mad and drunk. But then, when the line between dead and alive becomes a question to keep him awake for even longer at night, working anything else out begins to seem remarkably trivial.

 _This life,_ he thinks – _this fucking life._ There is always a bottle in his hand. He hurls it now with a faintly satisfying crash into the shadows. There is never a bottle in his hand. He hates himself, and it is a dull hate, a boring hate, too well known, too deep a part of him. He whispers “I’m sorry,” to the wine splattered walls, disgusted at himself for speaking his this, the sound of his bloody heartbeat, out loud. Useless words they are; a toy he never puts in the right place. Can he even mean them, when it brings him so little peace to speak them? It is no peace at all. It is still his heartbeat, but that beat could be a lie. And of course it is too late to wonder yet again if he did the right thing. _Too late_ does not seem to matter, stops nothing. The very words _justice_ and _duty_ taste bad enough to spit. He wishes he had not thrown away the last of the wine.

“Well, look at that,” a cuttingly clear voice, merciless in this dull place made of sludge and shadow. “A gutted, stinking ruin - or should I say a blackened shell?”

 _Perfect._ He closes his eyes, grinning mirthlessly in despair. _Fucking perfect._ He turns around slowly, resigned to it.

“You were the one who burned it.” She smirks. He cannot stop staring at her lips; when she moves them he stops breathing. It is a cruel joke – and doubtless one she knows she is playing on him – that she should look so perfect when he is fairly sure he smells as bad as he looks. The curve of her lip stabs at him.

“I wasn’t referring to the house.”

Of course. She is always ahead of him.

“Doesn’t matter. You burned that too, yes.”

“Do you know, I can’t quite decide if you’re getting melodramatic or if you’re simply wrong.” She could be talking about the weather for all she seems to care. “Next you’ll tell me you weren’t standing in the half-dark, working on your concepts of honour and duty.”

He hates her. _Hates_ her. Almost more for knowing him than for anything else.

“I have spent these five years standing in the half-dark.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Melodramatic, then. Tell me again – what was it happened five years ago to turn you into such a wreck of a man?”

His throat feels tight, he cannot look away from her – sublime, ruby red and pearl and black in the doorway. There is not a single barrier between them that could not be smashed through in a matter of seconds. He finds himself reduced, crushed down to nothing more than an urge to touch her, hurting him like something sharp embedded too deep in the skin to extract, and he has tried, god knows he has tried, tried until he tore to pieces and the stinging never stops. It is like wanting to touch a poisonous snake, dazzled by its shimmering colours, mesmerised and thoughtless.

“Shut up.” He can barely hear his own low growl.

“No. Why shouldn’t I speak? You’ve tried to silence me enough, now answer me.”

“You know-” he hates this, needs wine, can barely speak himself, clears his throat and starts again.

“-You know damn well.”

“Don’t tell me what I know. I want to hear you say it.”

He is not sure what is worse: that she is monstrous or that it is his fault. Of all the things he could say, of all the courses of action he could take, he obviously chooses the worst; he rushes her, less clumsily than last time, knife out and at her throat, screaming –

“I’ll kill you!” into her face. She gives him back a despicably unimpressed face, blinks slowly, and almost fucking smiles.

“No you won’t,” she says calmly, and then delivers the twist of her own knife  – “Not while you’re looking at me.”

His knife hand shakes, anger and despair, and she watches, it wary and a little worried by the shaking if nothing else. He closes his eyes – he always looks away first.

“I hate you,” it is almost a sob, and not a truer word spoken. He thinks about killing her; it would be so easy, just a swipe across her throat. He thinks about her insides spilling out, wrist deep in her spilt intestines, the hot steaming stickiness of her death. He wonders what the hell he is to think of this, hates how hard his cock is. Her _insides_ – yes – because he wants to be inside her. She is right, he cannot look at her, cannot see her smirk because she knows what he is thinking; she can feel him wanting her, wanting her so viscerally with the blade cold at her throat.

“Liar.” He can _hear_ her bloody smirk. He shakes his head, bent forward so his face is almost buried in her breasts.

“No lie. I hate you. I want you. Dear god I –” he shakes his head to clear it. It does not clear, but the mistake is already made; he catches her eye. And he’s done for; if he did not kiss her now he would have to wipe that smirk off her face some other way. She tastes the same; her body at least cannot be a lie, nor tell him any. When he kisses her the knife drops to her breast. He cannot quite tell if she is kissing him back or squirming to escape. When he stops for the first time she spits in his face. When he kisses her a second time he knows she is kissing him back. Somehow the point of his knife cracks her clothing apart; he would hate to think of himself as being someone who would do this, surely, he – tries not to really think – it is hardly difficult – surely his hand moves beyond his own control.

He does not care, cannot care, she is pale and perfect and _fuck_ he hardly has to touch her to know how ready she is for his cock; he remembers that _smell_ of her, more dizzying than jasmine, more intoxicating even than her skin. He can feel himself ready to fall and he goes down on his knees, dragging her with him, pulling her onto his desperate cock, shoving up inside her before he can stop himself by thinking, and she is so hot, so exquisite, the feel of her around him too much. He glares at her, daring her to make a sound, holding her tight by the arms and thrusting up into her, aggressive and intent on this sudden miraculous feeling of pleasure, eyes closed because they fall closed in ecstasy and because it still so hard to look at her even if he wants to drink in the sight of her mounted on his cock. He wants this forever and cannot last beyond moments, looking at her at the end, her face shocked, delighted and gasping and he groans, grinding the one word – “Bitch” between his teeth as he comes. Only then does she slap him and make to get up.

He grabs her reflexively, groping for the knife he dropped beside them, holding her tight in mid-flight and pressing it back to her neck. He knows he won’t use it, not now, but can only hope that she does not share this knowledge.

“I’m not done,” he snarls, and it is true; fucking her has only begun to take the edge off five years of futile lust spilled into his hand with her name leaking out from under his eyes. By the time she is on her back, he is hard again, and needy; caressing her throat tenderly with the point of the knife, kneading her cunt punishingly, feeling his wetness spilling out of her. “You’ll know when I’m done. You’ll go nowhere until I am.” Testing, she struggles, only to see what he will do. He bares his teeth, pushes her down; and here he is, raising a hand to slap her in the face, grinding his cock cruelly against her thigh to let her know she’s getting it again and no question. He does not feel better- and so no kinder – for realising that if she really fights him right now he could not stop himself from really raping her. He realises both that he would enjoy it, and that her struggle was a lie and a test that he has failed. Or won.

She grins, he glares at her in disgust; she looks like she might actually laugh, his lip curls –

“ _What?”_

“How long have you wanted this?” she taunts. “Rape me. See if I care. As if I ever came for you anyway.” She pauses just a moment to let that sink in. He flinches but refuses to believe her, then – “Did you always think about it? Even when you were trying to be good? When you were trying to be someone else?” He shakes her, lifts her enough to slam her back against the stone –

“When _I_ was trying to be –?” this time _he_ spits in her face, pries her legs apart with savage hands. She makes it hard for him, grinning, wishing she could hide how wet she was; she can hide everything else.

“You want to hurt me?” she laughs – “ _Hurt me._ But look at me when you do it.”

 _“Bitch,”_ he grunts –“I will hurt you.” He slams his cock in hard, squeezing her cunt tighter around it with his hand – “I’ll hurt you then, and use you and you’ll love it -you’ll come for me Anne -”

She slaps him. After everything else, she slaps him for this.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Fuck you. You fucking bitch, fuck you - god that’s good –”

This makes a mockery of any small release he ever feels that he has found. Five years dreaming, hiding, trying to die without the courage to do it. He’s a hypocrite, he knows, wanting the woman he has killed, not having even had the courage to kill her. He is every wicked thing he could imagine; every name she starts to whisper in his ear, her own prayer offered up alongside the litany of abuse he cannot keep down – _beast, monster, murderer, vile, pathetic, filthy wretch._ He gets something out of hearing the words that feels almost like absolution. At the very least, it is good to hear. He keeps a furious, frantic pace inside her, hammering his own invectives into her ear, but her hand is gentle on the back of his neck and he brushes his cheek against hers and wants to say her name again.

But she beats him, always. As usual she has to use every weakness against him, and all of a sudden it its _monster, brute, beast – Athos_. She drops it tenderly, a moan and a breath pushed from her chest out her mouth and he remembers – memory is a horror – he remembers her saying it before just like that, breathing his name on all those times she would like him to think she was faking. It undoes him. How could it not; he comes apart inside her, and does he imagine she cradles him, a barely voiced and soothing _shhh_ on her lips as she unravels with him and carries him sweat slicked and panting through the unmaking.

But he thinks – through a haze of clumsy mental inarticulate babbling – he cannot help but feel that when all those broken bits of him start to come back together with his ability to breathe, that they come back together in a better shape than they were before.

He almost wants more. But she is standing, always stronger than him, always ahead, smoothing down her skirts and glaring –

“I don’t suppose you brought a spare dress.” He shakes his head at her dumbly from the floor.

“I hadn’t planned –”

She laughs, looks around her as if for the first time. “I’d have had a lot to change into here, once.”

“If you hadn’t burned it down.” She rolls her eyes.

“Get off the floor Athos”. He stumbles upwards, into a kneeling position.

“Were you ever –” he does not want to ask but he supposes he may never get another chance.

“Was I ever what?”

“…Anne.”

For a moment he sees something pass over her face, something like pain. She bites her lip, blinks, and the look is gone.

“I might have been,” she says. She stops, almost against her will, not sure who out of them she is hurting more she adds – “I wanted to be. Were you ever the man you wanted to be?”

He shakes his head at her, unable to reply. She extends an arm. He lets her pull him to his feet. Her touch is cooling; he can feel her already closing off, drawing away from him. She lets go of him quickly, adjusts her skirts, fixes herself as quick and as well as she can –

“Well, whoever we are –” she says and her voice is cool, a sweet blue sort of cool that could wash away the fire she caused the last time she was here – “I was wrong. It doesn’t end here after all. Does it.”

It is not a question. He cannot think, cannot stop her melting back into the shadows and leaving him here and alone again. She said that, yes, last time – that it should end like this, but it doesn’t. It never ends. He sets to work in her wake, his fractured heart beginning to debate whether or not this is good or bad.

__x__

 

**So okay I don’t actually think Athos would go home like this if he didn’t absolutely have to but I kinda like the idea all the same, this is really just a tester fic to see if I can write these a-holes. If anyone likes it I may write more. :-)**


	2. Chapter 2

**So I think this fic is gonna turn into a series of maybe tenuous excuses for sexy times. *shrugs* I have another fic brewing that’ll actually have plot! this section is set shortly after the end of season 1.**

**2.**

“Oh for god’s sake, put the gun down, people are starting to stare.”

“I told you. I said if I saw you again, I’d kill you.”

“You said if you saw me again _in Paris._ We’re not in Paris. And it’s not my fault you’re here.”

“No. Is it ever your fault?”

“Is it ever yours? Apparently nothing is ever either of our faults. So why don’t you just put the gun down and calm down, and if you must speak to me do it like a sane thinking person.”

But he isn’t. He wishes he had something witty to say; she is beating him at every turn. He can usually think of something- even if it is brief he has something he can give back to any retort. But not with her. All he does around her is lose his words and fail. And she is right; this is a quiet country inn and now everyone is staring at the insane musketeer pointing a pistol at the apparently unarmed innocent woman. He tightens his grip on the handle angrily, and then drops it. He can feel the communal relief wash over the room as slowly people start to turn back to their drinks and he, without wanting or meaning to, is crossing the space between them, always pulled towards her by whatever unspeakable damn force this is. A nervous landlord scurries over –

“If sir and madam would perhaps like to take the side room, I believe it’s empty at present –”

Athos closes his eyes and groans softly, mutters at the man to bring wine, stomps off towards the room suggested, hearing the jittery man behind them add –

“My lady, is there someone I can get – any assistance – will you be needing –” and her cool voice, far too loud –

“No it’s alright, he’s my husband,” as though this explained everything. She sweeps into the room behind him, and they stand silently, neither of them making a move or sitting down until after the man has come quickly in with wine, and just as quickly left without it. Athos sits down at the wooden table in the corner and pours two glasses quickly. When she does not make a move to sit opposite, he drinks them both and refills.

“Better?”

She arches an eyebrow, sarcasm dripping from her lips; he can imagine the taste of it if he kissed her, bitter and delicious. He groans again. He wishes he had not stopped, that he had just gone back to Paris with the others. But it had been a long day and a hard mission out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to drink and Paris had seemed too far. It had seemed so innocent, so simple. Can it really have been just ten minutes ago – to say _don’t wait for me, I’ll follow later_ and turn off their track just a little to the inn at the crossroads.

“Never,” he grunts.

“I knew you’d come after me,” she says smugly.

“I didn’t, this was just –”

“A happy coincidence?”

“- bad luck.”

“So,” she grins, like a cat, he thinks, he has only ever felt so much like a cornered mouse when she grins at him like that. “Shall we call this neutral ground?”

“Last time you said that –” he stops. Last time she said that, she had kissed him and then told him to leave her alone when that was exactly what he had been trying to do. He still remembers the taste of her, rain and stone and warmth.

“That’s right. Last time I said that, nothing bad happened, did it? Why are you always so ready to expect the worst of me?”

“You have given me little cause to expect anything else.”

“Actually, if you want to talk about last time we met –”

“I don’t.”

“Last time we met, I did nothing. You and your idiot friends set me up and tried to kill me. I don’t recall I did _anything_ wrong but you –”

“Oh. Do please innumerate my failings.”

“You let me think you were dead!”

He looks at her solidly for a very long moment, lip twitching in bitter mirth.

“Ha,” he states – “Forgive me if I almost find that amusing. How long did I leave you thinking that again?”

She slams both palms down suddenly on the table opposite him, fire flashing in her eyes. He remembers that, that fire; it had once seemed like a dance, these days it is more of a war.

“ _You killed me,”_ she hisses – “I don’t owe you anything. I never did.”

“And what exactly should I owe you?” he grabs her wrist the instant she starts to move back, pins it to the table in a claw like grip. “ _Milady,”_ he adds venomously. She blinks, surprised at how much he can fit into one sneered word, so much scorn and scathing objection to everything she is trying so hard to be; at the same time as it infuriates her something else occurs that startles her, an all too familiar clench between the legs.

“It’s not even a name,” he mumbles – “Did I ever know your name? Milady de Winter, Madame le Chapelle – Anne de –” it pulls him up, hurts too much, he shakes his head. It is her turn to sneer.

“Choke on it,” she spits. “We should talk about choking some time. I never thought you _would_ be man enough to say the name of the woman you killed.”

“So _who are you?”_ he hisses.

“Do you mean now or then?” she shakes her head, makes a dismissive gesture – “It’s sweet that you think I would know.”

He looks down, suddenly deeply invested in the pattern of the wood grain. He cannot dare to start feeling sorry for her now, terribly afraid that he could anyway. He drinks. When he looks up again he realises he still has her wrist in his grasp, her smaller hand lost in his. A sudden vivid flash of memory hits –

_Summer, blue sky, the smell of the grass and flowers carpeting the meadow, they are sat in the long grass, hiding from the world half like children in this meadowsweet fort, her fingers are laced in his and when he brings them to his lips to kiss them he studies each finger, every line and inch of her._

_“What are you staring at?” she laughs._

_“You.” He smiles at her, smiles coming so easily here – “Such little hands, look.”_

_He places his palm to hers , spreading his fingers apart; she laughs and spreads her hands, pushing lightly against his, stretching her fingers to try and reach further, to not be so tiny. He swoops his hand down on hers, closing in like a falcon around a field mouse._

_“Well now you’ve got me,” she laughs – “your advantage is highly unfair.”_

_He holds both her hands clasped in one of his. She makes him think of some small wild animal, tender and sweet and something he wishes he could hold entirely in the palm of his hand. She laughs at him when he says this but there is a damp tenderness in her eyes that makes them dazzle in the sun and he wishes they could stay like this forever. He cannot imagine that they will not._

“You’ve got me –” she says quietly, her voice coming from far away and then she stops, frowns, looks appalled at herself for speaking out loud and for a moment he stares at her frozen and agonisingly afraid as they realise simultaneously that they were both there, just for a moment, in the field they should never have left.

“Don’t –” he lets go of her hand though it all but stings to do so – “God, don’t.”

She turns her back to him. He drinks. He hears her exhale a great breath, a cloud of feeling perhaps, or whatever it is she has inside.

“I think I preferred it when you were trying to kill me,” she says, almost conversationally

“And maybe I preferred it –” he stops. He wishes he _could_ lie.

“What?” she has to say it doesn’t she? She always has to say it – “When I was dead? _Did_ you? Did you really?”

“God can you ever _not speak?”_

“No. It’s one of the advantages of being alive.”

“There are _no_ advantages to you being alive.”

He looks down, she looks at him, ebb and flow, always, together and apart.

“There see? You _can_ lie.”

“Didn’t we establish that with that wonderful bit of play acting?”

“Yes. Let’s talk about that, shall we? Is it true you had to drink three bottles of wine before you could bring yourself to touch me? I can’t believe I was taken in by such a vulgar farce. Which bit exactly were you faking again? That wasn’t just your pistol I could feel pressing against me now, was it?”

“Shut up.”

“It’s a terrible quandary you’re in isn’t it? What _do_ you want to do more? Kill me or fuck me?”

“I said _shut up!”_

He moves fast for someone who has downed a flagon of wine so quickly, fast enough to make her catch her breath, her eyes widen in an excitement she successfully hides in seconds and she smirks when she has him where she wants him, pushing her shoulder into the wall with his pistol pointed to her head. She glances at him sideways, smirking into his enraged face –

“ _Still_ not just your pistol _.”_

__x__

 

**I know this is kind of an abrupt ending – but I have a second half to this chapter – it was gonna be just one chapter but it was getting long and the second half is really just pwp so it seemed like a good idea to break it in half. which _does_ mean yous have to wait for the sexy times for a bit. Heheh also sorry. :-)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Warnings for this chapter for graphic sex involving a pistol. Enjoy.**

**3.**

He wishes she was wrong; wishes that if he must continue to be unable to hide his desire from her that she could at least have the decency to stop mentioning it. But of course she doesn’t, decency is not one of her bywords. He wishes she did not smell so good, wishes he could not feel her chest heave like that when she looks at him sideways with all that mingled wariness, disgust and arousal. He wishes he had drunk more, wishes he was more sober – he does not know what he wishes anymore, who he is, only that he needs her and he does not want to answer her as to how that need has to play out. Her eyes flicker warily to the pistol in his shaking hand. He hates himself for everything going through his mind, it is a depressingly familiar feeling. He sags against her, dropping his aim until the point of the pistol rests against her throat- drinking in the sight of her is not enough. Nothing is ever enough; he has been thirsty for half a decade. He kisses her, she glares, squirms – does everything but actively try to fight him off. She kisses him back, arches her throat to the pistol’s point, he caresses her skin with the tip, hand on the back of her neck, pulling gently this time.

Her throat is still a mess. He wants to hurt himself and she is all too willing to help, tilting her head back so that he can kiss at her neck, over and over again, and somehow she knows that he is imagining each kiss erasing just a little bit of the bruise until she is perfect again, the wife he remembers who came so close to existing. It feels wonderful to imagine she could be that person again, and awful – she pushes him in earnest.

“Stop,” she breathes. He does; this time he can hear in her voice that she means it. But she takes his hands, draws him down to the floor with her. He comes as willingly as he ever did when they were perfect. It occurs to her that if she wanted it would be so easy to take the gun out of his hand just now. It occurs to him at the same time that he realises that she does not do so. He wonders what the hell is wrong with him as he pushes up her skirts, dragging the pistol along the softness of her inner thigh. It is too reminiscent, this act of falling upon her, too nostalgic to find himself thus between her legs. When he presses the pistol hard against her cunt and the only whimper she makes is one of delight, he tightens his grip and pushes the barrel slowly inside her. When he rubs a finger roughly on her clit he wonders if she has ever been wetter than this. A fractured –

“Oh god –” escapes her, followed by -

“Oh god yes please,” she twists on the floor, hands groping for something to grasp– “please -that hurts -”

He groans, her whimper and her words – just the thought that this could all be true at once go straight to his cock, so hard already it jerks at her voice, desperate and aching. He wishes he could shove it in her with the pistol still inside.

“Good, “he grunts. “God that’s good, say it again”. He thrusts the barrel in harder, wood and metal on her soft, helpless flesh. He batters her body from the inside out until she starts to cry in earnest, reaching for him and grasping at the gun with every muscle as she does so.

“Stop, please stop you bastard, it hurts –”

“God –” he closes his eyes, feels like he could come from this. “God yes bitch, you’re making me so hard.”

“You’re a monster,” she gasps, eyes delighted, so beautiful - “a filthy monster.”

“And you’re just a hole –” he rams her with the pistol. “ - a dirty hole for me to fill.”

He is spoilt for where to look – her face is exquisite, wild and wet, her eyes almost black; her bosom heaves madly, gasping for breath within her dress, and then he almost comes undone seeing the gun sink into her cunt as he shoves inside her and she screams and grabs at him in absence of anything else so hold on to.

“Shut up,” he grunts. “Shut up or I shoot.”

“It’s not –” he had not imagined her eyes could get wider.

“Oh yes.” he grins – “It’s loaded.”

She comes, screaming and sobbing. He laughs at her murderously, harshly, pulling out not ungently, regarding her wetness dripping from his pistol with frightening whimsy.

“A king’s musketeer should keep a weapon cleaner.” He says it gently, almost reflectively, something glittering in his eyes. He thrusts the barrel up roughly against her lips –

“Suck it. Suck it clean.” She glares at him, anger and glee in her eyes, does not open her mouth, forcing him to shove it against her face, all but shoving it between her lips. She sucks hard, tasting herself and steel until he cannot bear it any longer, pulling out.

“Now what?” she rolls her eyes, wanting to make him angry.

“Now I fuck you. See if you like my cock as much as the pistol.”

“And if I don’t like it?”

“I’ll rape you and I’ll come all the harder for it.”

“I love your cock,” she shakes her head, smiling. “I always loved your cock.”

He does not want to hear an _always_ from her now.

“Strip,” he barks, gun to her head.

“And if I don’t?” she will, he knows she will, he can see that glitter in her eyes, the smile on her lips that tells him the bare suggestion that she would not is the next in a long line of lies.

“You will. I need it, every inch of you. I want you to feel everything.”

He takes his own clothes off awkwardly, gun still in hand, sees her smile to see his leaking cock, rock hard and pulsing. He wonders what he even is to get so hard with his weapon at a woman’s head, what kind of monster she has made of him. He covers her nakedness with his, crams his cock inside her, driving balls deep into her gun-fucked cunt in one brutal thrust. Nothing has ever felt better than this, being inside her, fucking her. Always savage even when he loved her. He cannot, cannot lie about his tenses to make himself feel better, not at a time like this. He loves her, loves her with every punishing thrust of his cock into her body, loves the feel of her around him, the smell of her skin and her orgasm, the look of utter honesty in her eyes when she moans beneath him. It seems unnatural not to tell her that he loves her but he manages to stop himself, fucking her harder to make up for it. He touches her everywhere he can reach, hands in her hair, against her face, every inch of her skin, not to remember but just to feel, and for the first time in five years everything feels so good. He tries to make it last as long as possible, but restraint and her do not go together. He growls aloud when he comes inside her and she buries her screams, biting into his shoulder with sharp little teeth. Her grasping hand finds something to cling to; something, she lies later, better than him, and as he sinks against her she twists the gun easily out of his hand. For a few moments her hand rests on his head, nuzzled reverently into her neck, his hair soft between her fingers and her singing skin stings with memory. She drops her traitorous hand and nudges the gun against his head in its place.

“You should go now.” She wishes she was less breathless, more commanding, but he gets up all the same, looking at her like a faithful dog that is not sure what it has done or if it was allowed, knows only that it loves its mistress and will do as told. It hurts her. She wants to keep it. She cannot. They melt away, jerk back into their clothing without looking at each other.

“Where will you go?” she says finally, not looking at him.

“Home.” he grunts, the same – “Paris,” he amends.

“Where you’ll kill me, if I follow?” she arches an eyebrow. He finally turns to look at her.

“Yes?” He does not mean it to come out as a question; they both know it and can both hear that it does all the same. She suppresses every instinct to run to him, to hold him to her breast until he stops looking and sounding so lost. She could, she could be that person, wants to be. Cannot.

“You know you’ll see me again,” she says, tries to make it sound like a threat, it does not. They both hear that it does not, both embarrassed at their simultaneous feeling of relief that this is true. He opens his mouth to reply, a half dozen responses springing to mind. He stops himself just as the best one comes to mind; it is too true, too frightening. He looks down, walks out, head low. She walks to the table in the corner, sits down and pours the last of his wine, looks at the cup in her hand and puts the pistol down on the table in front of her grinning at it fondly for a moment. That he could forget to take it off her is his loss she smiles, and her memento. She sighs; she thinks he is only ever truly honest with her when he’s fucking her, and perhaps she is the same. _Look at us,_ she thinks, _he’s becoming a liar, and me? I’ll drink._

It rains all the way back to Paris and with every drop that slaps his back he hears the words he nearly said to her. He supposes they might thud in his ears until he sees her again.

_If I did not know that, I would never walk away._

__x__

**In case anyone wondered: it wasn’t loaded, Athos was lying, that would have been both utterly impractical and unsafe. :-)**

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Argh, Can’t remember who it was but I’m sure someone prodded me towards the idea of doing a chapter of this set just after the kiss in 1.8, so this is it, thank you! - obviously it is somewhat explicit. :-)**

**4.**

_Stay away from me_ she says, and he wants to and he does not want to and she means it and she does not mean it at all, and he does and he does and he does and all the time it feels as though he is holding his breath. And he does not understand her, reeling him in – but he lets himself be reeled so easily – it is _she_  who comes to him and then asks him to stay away as though he was the one who started it, and he never – and she does not understand her actions any more than he understands them, knowing that she started this and is acting as though he has sought her out only to offend her and she punches the wall when he walks away, frustrated at what stupid, idiot children they both are, including her. She hates him. He hates her; walking away through the shining and black wet streets he has never hated anyone so much in his life. She feels as though it will consume her, this hate. He needs a drink worse than ever. She pries herself off the wall; she needs a damn drink herself. He throws the first emptied bottle of the night into his wall, too angry to drink in public tonight, _fuck you, fuck you, you fucking hateful bitch –_ he is not sure if he says the words out loud or not. He needs another bottle.

He is not used to hate like this. She is not used to hate like this. _Fuck you then,_ she thinks and does not drink but cannot unclench her fist, indeed it tightens, her nails digging into her palms _fuck you, you fucking bastard, I hate you –_ she can hardly breathe from it. She hates him for depriving her of the ability to breathe. Again. He hates himself, two bottles down, he cannot feel himself, cannot even grasp at who he is; it is better but he hates it and he hates her for doing this to him. She hates him for everything he has done and continues to do to her. Most of all she hates him for refusing her. _Did you think I could forget who you are and what you did?_ Self-righteous, sanctimonious, hypocritical fucking _bastard._ She resists the urge to slam the door to her small hidden room at the palace.

He does not resist a single urge, not now, not alone, he has done enough of that tonight. It was savage, overwhelming, when he saw her there – the sudden brutal vision of slamming her into that wall and releasing every drop of lust-fuelled emotion into her body over and over until she was crying from it. He had pictured it far, far too clearly, suspects she might have preferred it if he had. _Shall I show you why?_ He curses himself for that moment of weakness, that second of sweet relief breathing her air and her lips beneath his. He curses it as the one thing that has felt right in all these years. Fucking years. He could have fucked her half to death. He should have. He _would_ have if he had not forced himself back. How could she do this to him? How could she be alive to ruin him like this? Her existence makes a mockery of every tear he shed for her death, of everything he thought she was. He had not after all this time found that way of living in the world without her, and the question he threw so clumsily at d’Artagnan has still to be answered – _What do I do now?_ And yet he finds himself more able to breath since her return than in all the time she was dead.

She should have killed him when she had the chance. She paces the small room, wishing there was somebody to kill. She almost goes to wake up the cardinal, tempted to demand a job this instant. She does not. She will arouse his suspicions- or anything else. She curses the weakness that stopped her slitting his throat like he deserved, even then it felt as though she had been building up to this for years. It would have been right, as she said then, to kill him. But then he had agreed with her, he had reached for her and she, against any logical judgement had just for that moment reached back before pulling back her own traitorous hand. If she was honest with herself she would know she has had more chances than just that one to kill him and failed to take them every time and why? She is _not_ honest with herself and so ignores her own question, determined to lie to herself as effectively as to anyone else. She could scream. She does not.

He screams something incoherent at the walls. The room next door must be used by now to the sound of breaking glass. This is the penalty for drunkenness; two – nearly three bottles down and the memories that come, visceral and unstoppable. He can smell her, feel her breath on his neck, her heartbeat, god, warm and alive, beating against his chest – but tonight it is not a distant memory, it is so fresh it surrounds him. He wanted her, wants her, hates himself for wanting her, not even the idea of her, but the real terrible person that he now knows her to be. He wants her too. He is hard to hurting just thinking about it, how close they came, that softness, that smell, that taste. He swears at his clothes, angrily releasing his cock, rock hard and aching and utterly entirely her fault.

And yet, she is not sure if it is torture or consolation – there was a moment, wasn’t there – just one brief second of sweetness, where he yielded to her kiss (shall I show you why) – and she knew that he knew why, that her kiss was enough for him, it was real, it was honest, not like the kisses she offered to everyone else. Something in him surely must have known it, to kiss her back if just for the minute. He wanted her, she could feel it, not just instinctively; it was an obvious and animal need, arching against her when she leant into his kiss. Perhaps that was why he had backed away, knowing that she had noticed, that she could hardly fail to notice, and then maybe his words had been a lie and his rejection not a damn thing to do with _who she was and what she did._ Because for a moment long enough to give away too much, he had not cared. She is surprised to find herself wet on getting into bed, and not from the rain.

He tries not to think of her. Tries to conjure up anyone else’s face. He tried it once before – actually going so far as to go to a whore to see if he could fuck her out of his system. He had not meant to choose a girl who looked like her, he had not meant to frighten her, he had not meant any of it. But as soon as he was alone with her he had found his thoughts swerving into vicious blackness. He had wanted to hurt her, seen himself all but tearing her to pieces with the teeth and claws of his lust. He had run from her before he could give in and retreated into a cowering mess at the back of his own soul, hiding from himself in fear. It was almost like that earlier, only this time it really was her, alive and warm and he was slamming her into the wall, slamming himself inside her with a ferocity she could answer and give back and it is so sweet to think of it now with his hand around his cock, lying back in his bed, the only thing that could make him forget the existence of that last half bottle of wine.

She has not done this in so long but she finds herself gasping beneath her own fingers, eyes squeezed shut with only the ceiling to stare back at her. He smelled of leather and rain and there was rain and wine in his kiss and memory, memory worst of all, tainted with something new and fierce and angry. Another moment and he might have had her up against that wall, spilling into her every drop of emotion he had been afraid to admit to himself back when they were good and foolish and all but strangers to each other in their waking dream of a life. This, she thinks, imagining it – this could in time be something better, something that would not gently ease her into orgasm but throw her that way screaming.

Nobody else, he thinks, sighing, could bring him to this. This exquisite and awful feeling of bliss, spilling into his hand with her name on the tip of his tongue, though he hardly knows any more what name that would be. It is sharper, deeper, more warming and more primal than whenever he has done this before-and he had done this a thousand times before. The frustration and ridiculousness of staying true to her all these years is an irony not lost on him. It is always her; he cannot even bring himself to think of anyone else. Sometimes he forgets there is anyone else in the world.

She turns her face into the pillow, shuddering out breaths of relief and release. Nobody else could do this for her, not before him, not after, not now. But she has not thought of him like this before now (she is not just good at lying to herself, she is splendid at it). She wishes she could make him understand how faithful she has been to him, at least in this. He could never understand. He would see only the list of men she has fucked, never realising she was hardly there in the room when it happened each time, unable to comprehend how effectively she can shut herself off. All of her powers of seduction are simply an ability to act; she suspects if it were otherwise she would be utterly ineffective. Even if he could understand she would hardly start to tell him, nor give him the satisfaction of knowing he is the only man to bring her to a point like this, just now. He did not even have to be here and yet he was more here now than she ever is with other men. It’s always him, only ever. Sometimes she forgets there is anyone else in the world.

__x__

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Based upon a prompt from _Charis_ for Pinon – era sensation play….but then it kinda ran away with itself so here goes!**

**5.**

“It’s so beautiful,” she smiles and yawns and stretches, all but dancing in front of the full length mirror. Her skirts swish the floor, dancing with her like petals in the wind and whistling around her legs in their first hint of a tease. She stretches, twirls, stands on tip toe, cautiously smiling over her shoulder to see him watching her from the bed, eyes wide and captivated. So strange so new, so sweet. Married not two days and the first time since their wedding night that she has gone so far as to properly get dressed. She barely recognises herself in the mirror, she is so beautiful, so full of smiles, her eyes bright like a bird, though the magpie is gone now. _A new me,_ she thinks, walking on air and dressed in clouds, _can I be this one – really? Will anyone buy it?_ But it is not anyone else who is in question, it is whether or not she can believe herself, she feels so fresh so innocent, shaking like a leaf in the rain after her wedding night revelations. _And who would have thought that I could even think that? Whoever I am. Not this girl in the mirror, not yet, not the girl he sees, but maybe, I could be, maybe soon._ And she wants to be, if only because he can see it in her; she never thought to see it in herself even though she may have been there all along.

She could dance. Or fly. Both seem equally possible now. She smooths down her skirts, flurried from her movements, the cotton crisp beneath her hands, the underskirts light as silk. She never knew silk except in briefly touched old and oily scraps, but this is like a soft breeze around her ankles.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, and in this dress she can believe it. She smiles at him, all but  skipping back to the bed, kneeling down beside it so as not to crumple her skirts by getting back in.

“You know you have to get out of that bed at some point,” she smiles, then frowns at him, feigning worry –

“You _do_ know that – don’t you?”

“Ughh,” he groans, long and loud, rolling his head back – “I know of no such travesty. _You_ come back to bed.”

“Look,” she runs to the window, gesturing as though the world needs to be put on display to tempt him – “It’s beautiful! Let’s go out, _please!_ ” she whines endearingly and he starts to sit up, the corners of his eyes crinkling with his smile. He does everything to indulge her every wish, seems to think of nothing beyond what would further her happiness. She is almost starting to believe that he has no ulterior motive. She wiggles her toes in the deep rug, enjoying every sensation the morning has to offer, preening for no other purpose but to enjoy it as he gets dressed himself. She sits on the edge of the bed, softly kicking her feet and playing with the edging of the bodice, feeling her own shape through the stiff brocade, tracing the pattern with her fingers picked out in white and blue silks.

She remembers the incident weeks ago now that led to him buying her this. This and the other dozen dresses she still has waiting to break in. It feels like the most excessive luxury to own so many clothes, to have her own space in which to hang them. She grins to herself, narrow eyed and secretive at the thought of everything she has still to touch and move around in, delighting in her own beauty. It is easy to delight in it when she sees it in his eyes so constantly.

It was after the small but obligatory party to announce their engagement. His family had insisted, and she had realised as soon as she got there how out of place her best country girl’s dress was. She knew they were all whispering about it, all of them judging her, all except Athos who, seeming only to look at her, did not even see or feel the reactions of others. He seemed irritatingly incapable of seeing anything other than perfection in her. But she burned quietly through her smiles and said nothing until they were alone later.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” He was at her side the instant they were alone and she let her smile slip.

“They hate me,” she sighed and her chin wobbled without even having to fake it.

“Don’t be –” he will not even call her silly, he could not insult her even that much – “Of course they don’t.”

“Don’t lie to me,” it comes out more sadly than she means it to, she thought she was just angry but this feels like a pull at the heart – “Please – I –” _I couldn’t bear it._ She stops, thinks about how much _she_ has lied to him and cannot. She has known how to fake her own tears for so long that the real wetness on her face shocks her as does what she says next –

“You deserve better than me,” – she cannot believe she would say this; every aim, every intention before this has been only to secure him and therefore her own position. She wonders what this strange self-sacrifice could mean; if it is love she is not sure she likes it.

“No,” he says. He gets on a knee before her chair, cups her face in his hand to turn it to him, kisses her cheeks gently, kissing away her tears – “No there’s no-one better. I don’t care what any of them think. I _love_ you. Only you. You are truly the best person I have ever met”. This just makes her cry harder for a moment, biting her lip to keep it silent.

“You are,” he says earnestly, and she puts her arms around his neck, hiding her face because he is so wrong, she has half a mind to tell him, tell him everything. But she cannot, cannot lose him, especially not now.

“I hate my dress,” she sniffs, like a child, when her tears subside. He looks at her curiously, good enough not to laugh at her – “I don’t - I’m not – well look at me, I can’t be a countess.”

“You can,” he insists. “Is it just the dress? I’ll get you another - I’ll get you as many as you want? We’ll go to Paris and you can get the best. Will that help?”

She gives a little half shake of her head, unable to believe him, his innocent simplicity, his eagerness to help her. He misunderstands her, of course, how could he not, but his understanding comes close enough to the truth to lead to the best outcome.

“I’ll never be –” she begins.

“Don’t say _good enough,”_ he interrupts her. “Please. You’re perfect.”

“I was going to say _nobility,”_ she smiles crookedly – “But yes – it might help.” She smiles.

“Have you –” he asks innocently, cautious, afraid of offending her country girl simplicity – “Have you been to Paris before?”

She laughs a little, rubbing her forehead on his shoulder before looking at him and nodding – “Yes –” she says breathlessly, “yes, but it was long ago. In another life”. It is the most honest she has ever been with him and she is surprised to find herself liking it. He looks at her smiling as ever, enchanted.

He leaves her for hours in the dressmakers and she tries to contain her excitement, her genuine interest and wide eyed delight, all of which he considers only natural in her. She has never had clothes made for her before, and she enjoys the whole process far more than any real noblewoman ever would. She finds herself having to touch everything, admiring the fabrics they present her with her fingers, running them through silk and over velvet and brocade and taffeta, fresh cool cottons and great heavy bolts of airy muslin. The dressmakers find her charming, a delight, they wish her all the best in her marriage and she wants to laugh and cry all at once, just barely restraining herself from rubbing her face up against the velvet they drape around her.

She remembers it all as they walk out in the early afternoon, her arm in his and her head on his shoulder. Her skirts are a source of constant pleasure, shifting crisply as she moves, the underskirts whispering between her thighs and stirring an ache she had been sure the last two days must have satisfied but is woken again now by licking whisper of silk lapping around  her hips and dipping between her legs.

She feels it at dinner too and it is delicious to be so aware, so sensitive and tingling, her skin singing so loudly that she feels everyone must hear it. Athos meets her eye across the table and she smiles and blushes and thinks _he can hear it, of course he can, he can hear every murmur in my veins._ She looks back down at her plate, eating slowly, enjoying all the sweet and delicious new tastes and even the propriety of the formal table settings and the silverware. She knows Catherine is looking at her disapprovingly because she has still not quite mastered eating like an _entirely_ perfect lady, but she does not care. She remembers her early mortification weeks ago when Athos noticed;  she could tell he was surprised but he did not say anything.

“I’m sorry,” she said later – “Where I come from – well we weren’t brought up to manners like these. I’ll try and do better, I promise.”

“No,” he said, smiling, eyes bright – “Don’t. I love it. I hate all the fuss and bother. Just eat and be normal. Don’t let my family ruin you.”

She enchants him. She can see it in every glance and swims in those glances, heady with the power of it, overwhelmed with dreamy disbelief. She finds herself sat at the table feeling her chest heave against the thick fabric and bone of her corset, making her breath almost hitch with every swell. She can see him watching her and looks away every time, growing warm with knowledge of the past two days between them and the promise of later and tomorrow and forever. She tries not to smile too indecently.

After dinner she stands by the fireplace, Catherine has announced a somewhat sulky intention to retire for the night in a way designed to make them feel guilty for something. So they are alone in the main room, the fire unnecessary really, but she is entranced by the play of light upon her arms, the almost unbearable heat on one side and the cool of the flagstones beneath her feet. He comes up behind her, running those rough but gentle fingers down her arms, kissing the back of her neck and making her crackle, like lightning running through her.

“You’re distracted,” he murmurs, and his breath is like another flame against her collar – “You’ve been distracted all day. What is it?”

She opens her mouth but cannot quite find the right words.

“Can I help?” he adds, and there is a hint of mischief in it, and his fingers brush lightly at her hips in just the right spot and she almost yelps but exhales a shuddering _ahh_ sound instead, arching back into his touch and she groans happily because he _knows._ At least he knows enough to torment her like this. His fingers press harder, rub circles around her hips, the fabric and the weight of him shifting and pressing against her skin, she can feel it all the way to her bones, the sensations, the buzz and crackle of it.

“It’s these –” her words come out breathier than she had wanted and he smiles against her shoulder, kissing and nuzzling her one arm around her waist holding her against him and she wonders when he got hard, if he was struggling with that over dinner just as she had been struggling – “It’s these skirts, they’ve been whispering at me all day –”

“Whispering?” she can feel the chuckle in his throat.

“Like when you talk against my skin –” she whispers, blushing, she feels silly, speaking of such things. “ I never knew silk was so – so _soft –_ like your lips between my legs –” In spite of everything they have done these past two days she feels scandalous saying it, trembling at her own words, at the fear that he will see her for the wanton she must be and discard her. But if anything he shifts more intently against her, pressing his need against her, his voice thickening, rumbling into her throat as she arches, half turning to let him kiss it –

“Well then – we should do something with your skirts –” he tugs needily at the laces at the small of her back but –

“No wait –” she swallows hard, reddening – “I – I like it – when you touch me there – with them on –”

“There?”

“You _know –”_

“Just here?” he _does_ know, stroking her skirts between her legs, brushing and then cupping her, grinding her cunt through the layers, feeling the heat of her and pressing in his palm and it is almost too much, the brush of the fabric against her and the weight of him and all of her laid bare even with the dress still on.

“Yes, but –”

“Here then?” he _is_ being wicked, she had no idea he had it in him – did she? Perhaps she did, perhaps it was one of too many things that had made her fall in love with him despite all her attempts to the contrary. He presses his fingers in, just two fingertips finding her clit in far too little time and rubbing devastatingly.

“Oh yes –” she moans, instantly, too quickly, she cannot control herself around him, it is still a surprise, she rolls her head back, arches into him in surrender – “Yes god, please –” and almost as an afterthought, “You’re not – shocked?”

“You’re my wife,” he pulls her back against him, grinding his erection into the small of her back – “You’re _mine,”_ he adds for emphasis, she can hear at least partly that he is reminding himself of this wonderful fact – “I want to  feel everything, to do everything , I want to hear you say _everything,_ tell me –” he can barely breathe, so choked up with wanting and feeling – “Tell me what you want, what I’m doing, tell me all the words.”

At first they will barely come, she shivers with embarrassment, but finds it makes the pulse between her legs all the stronger - but he strokes too slowly and not nearly as hard as he should and she knows he is doing this on purpose and breaks easily –

“I want –” she starts, trying to edge her round it, he removes one finger entirely to punish her, his press against her like a leaf fluttering against the side of a tree – “Touch me –” she is half ready to sob it out – “Touch me please, touch my clit through my skirts.”

 _Those_ are the words he wants and she really does scream a little when he presses his fingers back against her. The fabric shifts against her softest flesh and the hard nub of her is on fire beneath the shivering silk and his merciless fingers. She knows it is only a matter of time before he can feel the wetness seeping through the layers making the fabric slick against her and the sliding sensation of it is maddening. He does not stop, he knows it takes time. She does not know how he knew this, how he ever thought to touch her like this to begin with, but he just continued until she was shaking and crying with the surprise and delight of it and persists now.

“So wet –” he whispers it in her ear, as though she has done something wonderful and he is enthralled by this as by her every action. It feels indecent to hear it out loud, almost more than his fingers pressing the sodden material against her hot flesh and she moans obscenely and her legs shiver and –

“Please –” she whispers – “Please – I’ll fall –” it feels as though she must, as though her legs have no choice but to crumple beneath them for shivering but he eases her down, sitting on the floor in front of the fire with her nestled between his legs, her head heavy, rolling back against his shoulder and his fingers still working her clit with merciless intent, his spare hand splayed across her lower belly pressing in as though he knows that helps, sends the shudders deeper into her, draws the orgasm shaking out of her and he squeezes and strokes her cunt tenderly as she comes, cries loud and echoing in the vast room.

She sags against him, but he holds onto her as though she weighed nothing more than a feather, kissing her head, stroking the hair back from her face, fingers trailing up and down her arm in a manner that should not arouse her nearly this much or nearly this soon and she knows it will not be long before she wants this again.

“Why –” she breathes when she can speak again – “Why are you so good to me?”

“I love you,” he says it as though it is the easiest thing.

“No – but –” she frowns, sits up, swivels round in the floor to face him, her hands on his knees, unable to understand why he has not demanded more from her when she knows he wants her. “Don’t you want –” her hand slides up his leg, touching his cock as timorously as the shy virgin girl she was only supposed to be pretending to be. He closes his eyes; she can hear his breathing hitch in his chest.

“Of course,” his voice is thick with it. “Always. But that’s not why – I want you to feel good. I want to make you happy.”

She wants to ask why again, still struggling to understand. She wonders if there are other men like this, any at all. She wonders if he is not utterly mad.

“I want that too –” she feels like a child grasping hold of this want, which should seem strange at this moment, yet somehow doesn’t, as though even all of this could be an innocent uncomplicated series of acts – “I want to make _you_ happy. To be a good wife – I want –” He stops her with his lips, swallowing her wants in his kiss – “You –” he says, between kisses, hands moving slowly over her body, tugging gently at laces, shifting brocade and skirts aside – “Are an angel.”

 _And angel_ she thinks – _me._ Just months ago she would have laughed to have fooled him so utterly, now she only wishes it was true

“But I –” it is hard to object with him kissing a slow path down her body, sucking at her nipples through the soft thin fabric of her chemise until they are so hard she wants to scream. He rolls them between his fingers when his lips move lower – “It’s your turn!” she objects feebly with his head between her legs, but he shakes his head, makes a low humming noise and dips his head. _Later then,_ she thinks, her last thought while she still can think and he applies his tongue to the already drenched fabric between her thighs.

__x__

**This must be the first time I’ve written porn with so little dick action! But hey, not everything is about the penis so I’m kinda proud! :-)**

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

**6.**

  _This is a dream,_ he thinks and all he can do is wander through it, smiling benignly at everyone and everything – _this is a dream and so help me I never want to wake up from it_. It seems incredible, unreal that he could be this happy, this settled, this loved, drowning in a new sort of bliss he could never have fully imagined before. People do not talk of being this happy, it is not supposed to be, he imagines he has just somehow got lucky. He is that cliché – the luckiest man alive – it makes him blush and want to laugh to think it. He wonders if it is the same for her, wishes happily that he could see inside her head and know that she was truly as delighted with everything as she seems to be, as delighted with _him_ as he still cannot imagine she really is. If it takes a whole life time he does not imagine he will ever settle down to a point where this state of ecstasy could feel normal.  

It _will_ take their whole life time. He is prepared for that, gives himself up to it whole heartedly – a whole lifetime of loving her, of being as happy as they are now – it stretches out before him as golden as the past few weeks. It feels like an adventure, an unthinkable beautiful dream of a life. And all of this for him. He thinks it of the future as he thinks it of her. He cannot hold her, cannot lie looking at her without being overwhelmed by it – _all of this, this unspeakable almost unbearable joy, this love this beauty, all for me._ He never had anything before that he cherished this much. He had told her so last night in a moment of quiet candlelit fragility, flame in her eyes and his fingers lightly trailing her skin, sated for the minute on sensation, tingling and over sensitive from an excess of activity and stimulation.

“Never?” she had teased – “Not anything? Not a favourite toy or a pet? Nothing?”

“We-ell –” he had answered her smile, kissing her forehead. _Forever,_ the word sang up in his chest for the hundredth time – _a lifetime of this, and if I could give a lifetime for one moment I would and if I could have a hundred lifetimes it would not be enough._

“Maybe –” he traced the curve of her smile with reverential fingertips – “I did adore my first pony, Thunder he was called. I was eight, he was such a tiny pony, so well behaved –”

“So you called him Thunder?”

“I wanted something dashing –” he smiled, blinked apologetically; she brushed the hair out of his eyes with fingers as gentle as his on her face – “Chivalrous – I wanted to be a knight back then. I had a stick and a pony, had to imagine they were a sword and a steed.”

Her smile broke into a grin and her chest rippled with that silent deep laugh that she had  which he always understood was laughing with him ,not at him. It made him feel golden inside.

“And did you love him as much as me?” she laughed.

“Well, it was close,” he kissed the tip of her nose – “It was really close.”

But nothing came close, he knew it and he was sure she had to know it too. He had thought he was so much more level headed than this, too sensible to fall so completely into what seems now like a state of perfect delicious delirium. He is barely aware of who he was before her, not sure he had a self at all but she made him see it. Sometimes he finds himself gazing at her wondering who she is, where she could have come from, this angel, this goddess who has reformed him as though he were made out of clay. She seems to him to have sprung up out of the ground with the spring rains, a fully armoured deity sprung out of an idea. He does not think he would care if she turned out to not be human, it seems so utterly likely.

He feels, walking with her in the afternoon, as though she must be magic. How else could she have become his whole world so completely and so quickly and yet he still sees and feels everything around him? There is no longer such a possibility as too much sensation. He can feel the air, smell the fields and the grasses, hear the crickets in the evening and still feel her hand in his, her little hand curled within his fingers, her life cradled against him. It is overwhelming to have so _much._

And he knows too that she feels her difference very differently, that she fears about not being good enough for him, incredible though that seems to him; that she is too aware of the differences between them and he wishes he could tell her how little he cares. She could have come from nothing and she would still be a goddess to him. Nothing could change the essence of her, her smile, the way her eyes sparkle, the way they widen when she sees something she likes, the way she darts between pleasant things and sensations like a perfect little magpie. Nothing could change the way her skin feels or the way she moves when he touches her, she is her smile, her gentle but intrepid fingers. She is the way she whispers _I love you,_ the tears she confused herself with on their wedding night.

He sees the way she is watching him under her eyelids over dinner, and at first he thinks it is simple shyness and the same flushed love with which he has been looking at her. When he realises it is not that but something else, he almost chokes on a sliver of meat. He is sure his blushes must be evident for the world to see and he knows she sees them because her smile widens; she is a cat, he thinks, and he is happy to be the mouse then. After that, eating is awkward and he is far too aware of his cock to focus on anything but her. She will do this to him, he thinks contentedly, forever; keep him existing in this terrible state of insatiable desire, skin singing with need loudly enough to make him ready to scream at the slightest touch.

Better to touch her instead and keep from screaming aloud, at least just yet. He revels in the sensations of her just as she does in that of her skirts and feeling her body move in pleasure, hearing her little sighs and seeing the way her eyes roll at his touch – this is everything. He had not known he could have this effect on anyone, could not have imagined it; she is a positive miracle to him, making him feel the way she does – as though he is himself a god worthy of a place beside her. He comes when she does just from the friction of her body against him, but it is almost irrelevant to him and he is not sure if she even notices, sinking bonelessly to the floor in a puddle of her own ecstasy. He cannot even bring himself to a sense of embarrassment at the wetness in his breeches, only answer her question instead, her _why are you so good to me?_ Something in it makes his heart want to break for her, as though she could imagine anyone could treat her otherwise and live.

It will always be an act of worship to dip his head between her legs, bask in the smell of her and the trembling tension in her thighs. She screams in shifting squirming frustration and over sensitized pleasure when he licks at her through her skirts and whimpers at the lack of contact when he pushes them up, applying himself to her drenched shuddering flesh. She still sounds positively surprised when he makes her come like this, hears a revelatory _oh_ sound in her screams that makes him want to wring them from her all the more. He is glad she is his, only ever his, but a part of him wishes she had spent her whole life knowing pleasure like this, she should have, he thinks in this delirium, she should have everyone fall at her feet begging to pay such obeisance to her.

He holds her through her shaking, hands on her hips, burrowing his face into her wetness, licking lightly, small flicks of the tip of his tongue to keep her screaming for longer and then swatting at him like a fly when she is gasping to regain breath and he wants only to know if he can make her go again.

“Athos!” It is half a laugh, half a groan – “Athos no! No I can’t, I’ll die, stop!”

He can feel it take every effort she has to push herself half up, palms on the floor, weakly pulling him up her body until he can kiss her and he knows she must taste herself on his tongue and is hard again thinking about it.

“I want –” she says, and her hand brushes lightly against the front of his breeches and comes away damp, she frowns down at it –

“Did you -?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When you did – the first time.”

“Oh.” She looks at him, that wide eyed look that makes her look so innocent. He cannot imagine how there can be so much conflicting innocence and knowledge inside just one woman. Then she smiles slowly – “Still –” she flips their positions as fluid as if she had been water and he is carried along in her tide. He groans as her fingers tug deftly at his belt – “I said it was your turn.”

“I didn’t –” he groaned – any kind of objection is fast becoming more than difficult – “I didn’t do it so that you would….”

“Shhh –” she is an angel above him even now and he is falling fast, held up by the beat of her wings – “I know that,” and there is something strange in her face, a though the idea is curious to her and it is somehow hard for her to know this and he cannot find words beyond finishing what he was trying to say whatever it was – he gropes for it –

“-reciprocate,” he groans and his head falls back against the flagstones. Her terrible fingers pause their torture, playing around his cock as she frees it from his breeches and she hums lightly as though in consideration –

“What an idea,” she murmurs and she dips her head as he has done to her so many times already in three days. At first he does not quite understand what she means to do, but she licks at his cock, gently at first and then in longer stripes down the full aching length. His hands scramble for purchase on the stone and he flails, feeling as though he is falling or flying – much more like flying, and she pauses, breath warm against his hardness before she takes it slowly into her mouth and he feels as though he might die from this, did not know this was even a possibility and how has nobody told him before now? How did she _think_ of it? Her tongue is heaven and hell around him and her mouth so warm and gentle, yet intent almost as though she knows what she is doing although it is all the sweeter knowing that is just guessing as he was with her, finding his way as though he had been doing it all his life. He understands, this just comes naturally to them; they were made to make each other feel this good.

But she does it so innocently somehow, now and then flicking those big eyes up to catch his gaze, a question in their depths as to if she is doing right; he cannot reply, only hope that his groans and his hand stroking through her hair are enough for her to understand his _yes, oh god yes._ He feels himself in deadly danger of just spilling into her mouth within minutes but she seems to be aware of this and pulls back when he feels himself on the brink, maddening him with the tip of her tongue and just the tip of his cock in return. Then she goes in again and he is moaning aloud now, head thrown back, whispering her name as a litany, a prayer, a mantra and a curse word over and over again _Anneanneanneanneanneanne –_ until it no longer sounds like a name or even a word just a tremulous ululation battering low in his throat like a butterfly trapped inside and fluttering wildly, the thunder of hooves and the rattle of the shutters in the wind, her name that is not a name spilling from him like the end of a prayer to which he has forgotten the words, a  church bell, a call to worship, ringing through the room. It is not even _her_ anymore, this sound in his throat, she is something so much more than just a word, a name, a call to prayer. She is the prayer itself and he knows he is lost, was lost from the moment he saw her. He will always be lost and just now he would not wish it any other way. There will never be a time when she is not everything. He has no control around her, cannot even fathom the concept, he is in her throat now and its tightness around him kills him and he is coming, before he can even think about what he is doing and she swallowing, accepting every drop of his offering like the gracious goddess she is, he wonders if she knows how fervently the prayer sang in his heart and everything is white and he is flying, only ever flying.

When he opens his eyes again she is lying half on, half beside him, her head on his chest, nestled into him like some small trusting creature and her trust seems so precious somehow- he cannot quite explain it- and he feels only the most poignant tenderness, a passionate need to nurture that trust and keep her safe as though he has fallen asleep in a forest and woken to find some tiny animal fragile and exquisite nestled against him. He barely wants to breathe for fear of her moving, she feels so perfect like this.

She opens her eyes and smiles and she seems happy, almost proud, and he wonders what he was, what he could ever be without her, wonders if he is tied into her sense of herself as much as she has become woven in with him. _Anne,_ he murmurs one more time in reprise of the prayer, the song of her that his heart will never stop singing. The word _love_ feels too small for this, too inadequate.

“Yes,” she says, sleepily and he does not quite grasp her meaning but he knows he likes it when she sighs contentedly, pressing into him and fitting there completely – “Yes, always”.

__x__

 


End file.
